In recent years, in connection with an increase in concern for security in daily life, surveillance has been augmented by use of surveillance cameras at various sites. For example, a system that enables tracking of a suspicious person by use of a small robot equipped with a camera has been studied. In order for the small robot to track the suspicious person, images photographed by the small robot need to be subjected to an analysis process. Generally, in order to meet demands regarding the small robot, such as that it consume less electric power and be downsized, an idea of performing analysis of the images in, for example, a server apparatus, and causing the small robot to perform a tracking operation based on results of the image analysis performed in, for example, the server apparatus has been proposed.
Patent Literature 1 discloses that, in consideration of, for example, processing performances and processing conditions of image processing apparatuses connected to a network, and a load on the network, image processes are distributed among the plurality of image processing apparatus. Specifically, Patent Literature 1 discloses that a task of recognizing a human face is processed in a distributed manner by a plurality of surveillance cameras, and that a task of distinguishing genders based on the recognized faces and calculating the numbers of persons in images by gender is processed in a distributed manner by the plurality of surveillance cameras.